What All Lives in the Yellow Stuff We’ve Seen? Mystery Algae
Peter Brannen

On Thursday morning all was right with the Lagoon Pond. The water was clear, blue-green crystal, by all appearances the very picture of estuarine health. Just a day before, the water was clouded by an unsightly yellowish-brown fog from the head to the mouth of the Lagoon. It was an explosion of prorocentrum, an algae, and the largest one that Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group director Rick Karney has ever seen.

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Trouble in Lagoon Pond Adds Urgency to Recovery Efforts
Peter Brannen

Lagoon Pond is in trouble. Island residents heard a familiar story on Wednesday from representatives of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project about another degraded coastal pond on the Island, but town officials say that they are determined to find a solution.

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Lagoon Pond Sewer Study to Go to Vote
Peter Brannen

The town of Oak Bluffs is signalling its seriousness about combatting the threat of nitrogen in Vineyard ponds with a warrant article that begins the process of sewering subdivisions along Lagoon Pond. In the annual town meeting warrant selectmen are asking the town to transfer $150,000 from the town’s wastewater retained earnings account to fund the initial planning of the sewering project.

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Schlossberg Donation Clears Way for Estuaries Project
Remy Tumin

The Aquinnah selectmen voted this week to accept a private donation to help underwrite the town’s participation in the Massachusetts Estuaries Project study of Menemsha and Squibnocket Ponds. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg will contribute up to $15,000 to help pay for the town’s share of the project.

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Ponds Health, Budget Hike Top Chilmark Warrant
Remy Tumin

A sharp increase in the annual town operating budget and the question, both financial and philosophical, of whether to continue participation in the Massachusetts Estuaries Project are the key issues that will come before Chilmark voters at their annual town meeting Monday night.

The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Chilmark Community Center; longtime moderator Everett Poole will preside over the 22-article warrant. The annual town election is Wednesday.

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News Update: Wednesday, April 25 - Chilmark Voters Say Yes to Pond Study, No to Roundabout

The Menemsha Pond system and Chilmark Pond are now eligible to participate in the Massachusetts Estuaries Project after voters approved a Proposition 2 and a half override for the project at the annual town election on Wednesday.

The vote was 192 to 56 for the Menemsha ponds, and 179 to 69 for Chilmark Pond.

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Estuaries Study: Worth Its Weight

Cribbing a famous line from an infamous late U.S. president, it is public enemy number one in Southeastern Massachusetts, although this time the enemy is not drugs but nitrogen. Nitrogen poses a serious threat to the health of our coastal ponds and saltwater embayments that were once pristine and are now in alarming states of decline. Eelgrass beds are gone or disappearing, and along with them the clean shellfish that both provide a rich source of food and form a key cog in the local economy.

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